Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond is the latest Canadian to be immortalized on a banknote.
When $10 bills bearing Desmond’s likeness of the civil rights pioneer enter circulation in 2018, she will be the first woman other than Queen Elizabeth II to grace Canadian currency.
The announcement was made Thursday morning by Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu and Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz.
Desmond, who has been called the “Rosa Parks of Canada,” is known for defying the colour barrier at a New Glasgow, N.S. movie house in 1946.
“It’s a big day to have a woman on a banknote,” said Desmond’s sister, Wanda Robson, who spoke at the ceremony. “It’s really big day to have my big sister on a banknote..
Desmond was a beautician and owner of Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture, a Halifax beauty parlour serving the city’s black community.
In 1946, while trying to see a movie in New Glasgow’s Roseland Theatre, she was told that, because she was black, she would only be allowed to sit in the balcony.
Refusing to bow to segregation, the 32-year-old Desmond took a seat on the main floor of the theatre, normally reserved only for whites, and refused to move.
Desmond was arrested and spent the night in jail, charged the following day with attempting to defraud the provincial government. A judge fined her $26.
In the months after the incident, Desmond fought to have her charge reversed. Her case was taken as high as the Nova Scotia Supreme Court and, ultimately, her appeal was dismissed in 1947.
She died in 1965 at age 50.
Desmond was one of five accomplished, barrier-breaking women shortlisted for the honour.
The runners up were Mohawk artist and poet E. Pauline Johnson; Olympic gold medalist Bobbie Rosenfeld; journalist, feminist and suffragette Idola Saint-Jean; and Canada’s first practicing female engineer, Elsie MacGill, who also became the world’s first female aircraft designer.
